Okaloosa County’s new internal auditor, Carr, Riggs & Ingram, will turn its attention first to the county’s three airports.
County Commissioner Kelly Windes made the suggestion at the board’s meeting in Crestview on Tuesday. The rest of the commissioners agreed.
“I want to send them to the airport to look at how the leases are conforming,” said Windes, who is the board’s liaison to the airports department.
He said he wanted CRI to focus on problems the county may have with fraud risk and “any tenants in arrears.”
Windes said “it just makes sense” to have the firm scrutinize the airports department when it has an interim director and is preparing for a new permanent director in the next few months.
Commissioner Dave Parisot agreed.
“The monitoring of the leases does need attention,” he said.
The county’s recent annual financial report, conducted by Angela Balent, a certified public accountant with Warren Averett, recommended the airports department develop a master lease schedule.
The county’s three airports — Northwest Florida Regional, Destin and Bob Sikes in Crestview — have between 170 and 175 leases, the most of any county department.
Dino Villani, the interim airports director, said Thursday a master schedule of all the contracts is a good idea and should be in place within the next week.
“I’m all for it,” he said. “It’s a way to monitor and track these leases in an organized manner.”
County Administrator Ernie Padgett agreed. He said the master schedule “is something that should have been in place.”
Although the airports department is an enterprise fund — it operates entirely on fees instead of property tax revenue — it must be held to the same standards as other departments, Padgett said.
“I don’t want people thinking they’re just out there operating on their own,” he said. “That’s not how it’s going to be.”
Okaloosa County recently finalized a payment plan with a leaseholder that owed almost $500,000 in back rent. The company, Miracle Strip Aviation, agreed to the plan in March to settle its debt, which was amassed because of a county billing error. The discrepancy between what the county was charging the company and what it actually was paying went unnoticed until an internal audit in February 2011.
A recent analysis also uncovered two other leases that were in arrears for $14,000 and $26,000. Both of those leases and the debts are being renegotiated with the county.
Contact Daily News Staff Writer Kari Barlow at 850-315-4438 or kbarlow@nwfdailynews.com. Follow her on Twitter @KariBnwfdn.